Page 36 of Born for Starlight

Slowly and thoroughly, my whole body flushed with heat.

He set the roll down, licked frosting off his thumb, and went back to his coffee like nothing had happened at all.

I walked out of the Down Home Diner into the morning sunshine, and I could not, for the life of me, remember where I'd parked my car.

Chapter Twelve

The offer to buy the bike came in on a Tuesday.

I was on my second cup of bad instant coffee when the reply landed on the listing, six days after I posted a motorcycle that didn't exist. A buyer, asking in Portuguese whether the '86 still ran and whether I'd take payment in installments. Installments meant the draft folder. I closed the listing, opened a browser window I never bookmarked, and logged into an email account that had never sent a single message in its life.

One draft. Saved forty minutes ago, from a beach town internet café if the man had any sense left, and he had more sense than anyone I'd ever run.

They’re making plans for her arrival. Lots of excitement at the higher levels. Too much. And it’s not about the money. Can’t dig further. Last contact.

I read it three times. Then I deleted the draft, emptied the trash, and logged out, and my hands did all of this correctly and automatically while the rest of me sat very still in a motel chair that had no cushion left.

It's not about the money.

Money I could work with. A network that wanted her money would keep her alive, keep her happy, keep her signing checks, and every one of those needs was a leash I could hold. But excitement at the higher levels that had nothing to do with a quarter of a million dollars meant somebody up there wanted something from Angelica Drakos that wasn't in her bank account.

They’re making plans for her arrival.

I got up and walked the length of the room, which took ten steps, and back, which took ten more. The man on the other end of that draft folder had survived eleven years inside because he never overstated anything. He'd watched men who didn't excite easily. If he said they were excited, then they were. If he said they had plans, then they did. And the fact he couldn’t dig further told me just how precarious this whole situation was. How much it meant to the higher-ups.

And Angelica was going. In under two weeks she was going, and I'd already run every version of stopping her, and every version ended the same way, with her on that plane anyway and me holding my dick in my hand with no ability to stop her.

So, I did what I could control. I sat back down, and I built.

I sent word through a cutout to a driver in São Luís I'd have trusted with my mother. I started paper on a second vehicle, a second route, a place to sleep that wasn't the place we'd say we were sleeping, in case I was feeling antsy. I moved money into an account that didn't touch my name.

Then I picked up my regular phone and called New York.

"Matthew." Alberto answered on the second ring, the way he'd answered for nine years, sounding more like a father than my father had back in the day. "You're alive. I take back what I said to my wife."

"I need a suit."

"A suit." A pause, and I could hear him setting down whatever beautiful thing he was doing to some other man's lapels. "It’s summer, so something lightweight perhaps. What’s the occasion? Where will you be?"

"A wedding in Tennessee."

“Who are you escorting?”

“The wedding planner, but she’ll be dressed up. Her name is Angelica Drakos.”

“Well then, you’ll need to look top-notch. Do you know what she’s wearing?”

“I have no clue. She just said make sure that the tie has ivory in it, not stark white.”

Alberto chuckled.

“What time is this wedding?”

“I’m supposed to pick her up at four o’clock.”

“So dusk. What address am I sending this to, and when do you need it?”

I gave him the address of the LeeHy. "I need it by Friday.”